(AA) Canto 55: Year Six
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Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories
Sun Tzu
Brutal Reunions
I have nae will to sing or danse
For fear of England & of France
God send them sorrow & mischance
Sir Richard Maitland
Effective sermons of never-say-die
Fuel Yeo’s soul flame, whose prison dirts
Penetrate skin; a gape of open sky,
Outside at last ! with seventeen, alerts
Appear’d like puffs,
Of smoke about his brain
Conjoin’d by ankle cuffs, them bundl’d in a train.
As down the carriage, cumbersome,
Rough nudg’d, him & seventeen,
Yeo observes the face of some
Woman – back in Golders Green
They’d discuss’d with optimism,
Leaving the old routine,
Adventures rending the rest of the war…
Now Aimee Gardner’s chain’d, like him, who swore
She never would be caught… thro’ France
Pass, they, friendly faces,
Still, start, advance, until the dance
At the change of races,
Yon Maginot’s & Siegfried’s stringing beads of hostile bases.
Saarbrucken
October
1944
Saint Aimee
A white stone half-dug into the soil,
Said to me as I was passing by:
– God bless you, pray, I’m a tombstone
Azim Souyun
For thirty-six hours their train has sat
On some side track, just waiting for its turn,
Inside all prisoners can do is chat,
But silence clamm’d by thirsty words which burn;
Angels appear
Like Saint Philip’s daughter,
Eutychis, “Keep alive…” sliding pales of water,
They haul’d them from a cistern pot
Crawling beneath the windows,
Elsewise all of them might be shot,
As each droplet rebestows
The vim of life, from sunk to trot
As acqua vitae flows,
What words of reassurance left the lips
Of those fair spirits – once again there grips
Determination strength to raise
Yeo’s is returning
Squeez’d firm his fist out from the mist
Of madness, saw burning
The torch of hope that tops the slippy slopes of grope & churning.
Bad Kreuznach
October
1944
Death of Aimee Gardner
Dear, beauteous Death, the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere but in the dark,
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust
Henry Vaughan
Another halt, this time a diff’rent stir,
& Aimee was unshackl’d from the rest,
Usher’d outside, lined up, awaiting there
A dozen rifles pointed at her chest;
Fate’s sudden wrench,
This could not be mistook,
Thought thoughts, she, just in French, enough to fill a book!
Strength-whisper-words softly exchang’d,
Were winds on which the finches
Flew one last time; the rifles rang’d
Against them; knuckle clenches
The trigger – finger friction chang’d,
Out of diamond dentures,
A solid order roar’d for men to “SHOOT!”
the dozen bullets flew, slew absolute.
Drops Aimee in her final thoughts…
Family was smiling,
A memory of sand & sea
Upon brainwaves piling,
Lurches towards oblivion’s desolate beguiling.
Wachtersbach
October
1944
Autumnal Blood
Should the worst come to the worst
Should we be overpowered by our foes.
Our bodies shall lie on the field of battle
Mangaia
Eisenhower clutches his purple hearts,
With Axis soldiers murder’d as they stood,
Rapid progress reduced to fits & starts,
Bogg’d down by Autumn’s dirge of rain & mud;
Most precious oil
Trickles from port to front,
As onto German soil the first assault troops shunt.
Thou art Hell, once verdant Hurtgen,
Thy primeval forestry,
Watches lion dedication,
Men embattl’d dev’lishly,
The German spirit’s bolster’d iron,
Flaking young-gun Yankee;
Harsh-fated rules amidst thine ancyent bark,
The going brutal & the killing dark.
Each liquid roads, each pile of snow,
Each booby-trap ambush,
Has stemm’d the flow, strange vertigo
Dizzies the Allied push;
His front safe-clos’d Hitler withdraws the Panzers in a hush.
Ardennes
November
1944
Redistributions
The dissipation of feature,
The manifestation of skull,
The lengthening of cheek
George Bruce
Just yesterday was Yeo’s fate interr’d
In hell’s own guts, but feels an age ago,
Sepulchral rows of spectral faces gurn’d,
the antiphon of loneliness bestow;
Firm lock’d within,
No questions to be ask’d
Obeying, with a grin, whatever he’s been task’d.
Rot yellow comes in sticky streams,
Sores purulently oozing,
Dung carted off by ‘being’ teams
Of whom some used as amusing
Torture clowns, appalling screams
On all eardrums bruising
& only one way, one day, all will leave
That’s up the chimney – I do not believe
This is my fate, claims Yeo, still,
Remembering his vow
To grind the mill, unwind his will
Survive no matter how,
To reach the finish line & with a flourish take a bow.
Buchenwald
November
1944
A New Mission
The sun sips the sky until it is drowning.
I am circling my prey.
If I am strong, the world will finally let us be.
Kamikaze Death Poem (anon.)
The Japanese air officer appears
Afore young pilots fresh-faced & alive,
“We’re looking for some special volunteers
To fly a mission no-one could survive:
One possible
Answer of three impart,
‘No,’ ‘Yes,’ & ‘Yes, I volunteer with all my heart.’”
Taken aback them were, of course,
Who’d wanna be a gonner?
But when night fell, floods forth in force,
Thought-phantoms of dishonour;
His mother’s tears, his father hoarse,
“Why bestow this on her?
A coward for a son!” in fitful dreams
Apocalyptic visions stuff’d with screams.
Out of the forty who awoke
“Yes…” answer’d thirty-nine,
The other bloke they push & poke,
While forming in a line,
Zeletic alcestissians for Yosukini’s shrine.
Tokyo
December
1944
The Last Wolf
Ez for war, I call it murder,-
There you hev it plain an’ flat;
I don’t want to go no durder
James Russel Lowell
A fleet of thirty Lancasters takes flight,
Cocksuring with latest technology,
When wee computers, supporting bombsight,
Keen-measuring wind-speed velocity;
The sixth hour nears,
Below – in Tromsoe fiord –
The matchstick ship appears, each pilot pulls the cord,
Dropping bombs ever precisely
On the long-sought for Tirpitz,
Who shudders with Hellish fury
Neath an unrelenting blitz,
This fairest princess of the sea
Struck by convulsive fits,
Slipping into the icy, bubbling foam –
Above, applauding Britons turn for home.
This last pride of the High Seas Fleet
Lies, rust-meat, under waves –
Awful, complete, total defeat,
Dead in their ocean graves,
This challenge to Brittania ends like Trojan architraves.
Norway
Dec 12th
1944
The End of the Affair
When I was a young shoot & curious
my heart was set on this world;
my evil deeds will make me die soon
Palau
Twyx keen lambitus & deft fellatrice
Two lovers groan in gushes, while outside
Shuffle shadow beings until decease,
Monotonous, inescapable ride!
With coital flame
Slowing with fierce fondling
They go to play the game of sonderbehandling.
Anna Grunfeld stood a statue
As dawdle her inspectors
Along the lines, where two-by-two,
Arbitary, capricious,
The weakest lookers pay their due
In this evil, viscious
Infestation of every human sin,
When ‘special treatment’ just a rubbish bin!
The two new vernals caught her eye,
She had her wicked way,
A startl’d cry, a heartfelt, “why
Touch Juden filth, & gay!
This trysting is kaput!” hiss’d the disgusted Mengele.
Auschwitz
December 16th
1944
Battle of the Bulge
Let the shell fragments
howl past more often,
random death roam free
Sergey Narovchatov
The Allies stand at Germany’s threshfold,
Hitler denudes defences in the East,
Inspires his troops with the gusto of old,
Once more the grand gods of battle may feast!
Thro’ the Ardennes
Trail miles of martial queues,
Fresh aircraft, tanks & men, “To Antwerp & the Meuse!”
Fog drowns the leaves, the ice breeze chills,
Vee-Twos trail fiery blazes,
Thro’ twisted vales, ‘neath snow-capt hills,
Trundle hundreds of panzers,
No vernal cluster’d Daffodils
Comforting the soldiers
Attacking tanks cunctatorially –
How different from triumphal ‘forty.
The petrol dumps are blown sky high,
Fury’s depleted use,
Their fumes suck’d dry the Panzers sigh
Beside the milky Meuse,
Yearning for famous victory, alas the Fates refuse.
Dinant
December 22nd
1944
Mumble Words 